1) Take airbnb to arbitration and get your money back. You can't sue airbnb but you can take them to arbitration. I did (for other matters), it took me 6 months, obviously some of my time and got them to settle at a good deal before the actual final audience. Settlement offer came from them! Please don't ask more I won't be able to share more. Read their terms about arbitration and take it from there. It costs you only $200. They have to pay and their pockets are deep enough to do so. Don't let go your hard earned money.
2) There is definitely room for a new OTA player but not now. I have been thinking of this since a couple years ago. I appreciate some hosts claiming they see the end of the tunnel, but I believe the industry is hurt for years, not just months, and hotels are better positioned to transit through this crisis than the unstable STR market composed of hosts with no reserve and not enough motivation to stay in this business. Some may say Airbnb started at time of crisis. Yes but not the same type of crisis. In 2008 was a crisis needing STR and there was no STR. Now there is a crisis NOT needing STR, and there are plenty of STRs.
3) If you are in a isolated mountain / vacation market with cheap RE assets where even with a low vacancy rate you are fine, and own 1 or 2 properties , I think you will be fine. All other cases are not sustainable IMO. If you scale the business you need to be in a more concentrated location and you are in trouble. Not even to mention the regulation in the cities which are trending to back to full ban.
4) Let's face it, STR BUSINESS FAILED TO BE A HIGH GROWTH, HIGHLY PROFITABLE! I started STR 5 years ago here in SOuthern California. Guests were high end, smart, educated, honest. A pleasure to interact with. 5 years later, in the same market I saw a total change in the profile of the guests, requiring more management time, less profitability and less fun. I decided to gradually switch to LTR and started doing so before COVID. I have one unit left now, vacant since 2 months that I think I will convert now without waiting summer. Not sure yet. As the leader in the space Airbnb has the biggest part of the responsibility for this failure by what I call mis-educating guests from the beginning. They thought they need to take the guests side to get volume (which is right). They chased higher volumes of guests instead of higher quality. Example: when they don't let the host ask for a deposit which is the basics of any rental (from a bike to a house), they allowed guests to believe they can do whatever they want. That culture was visible years before covid and predictable. I was not surprised at all with their policy during covid refunding guests.
